According to the charges filed against Tey on Friday, the married professor and former district judge allegedly had sex with Ko twice and obtained an iPod, tailor-made shirts, a Mont Blanc from her from May to July 2010 in exchange for showing favour in his assessment of her academic performance while she was his student at the university.

One of Ko’s Cross Country team mates, who declined to be named, described her as a “friendly, lively and bubbly kind of person”.

When asked about how Ko performed in school, the source said, “I wasn’t close to her so I don’t know her grades, but my general impression of her is smart, and that she didn’t have issues with her grades.”

The bond-free scholarship, now known as the Kent Ridge Undergraduate Scholarship, is reserved for the “brightest talents who possess the will to make a difference”, with recipients described as “well-rounded” individuals who is “consistently among the very best”.

Two coursemates said they were shocked by the news involving Ko, whom they said comes from a well-to-do-family, as she had not struck them as being extremely academically driven.

According to her LinkedIn profile that has since been deleted, Ko worked as an intern at Rajah & Tann LLP between 2008 and 2010.

A Rajah & Tann intern who worked with Ko during that period described her as “bubbly, ready to help, but also a little flirtatious”.

In 2010, Ko worked as a summer associate at O’Melveny & Myers LLP for a year and is said to be currently working as a pupil at a law firm in Singapore.

Ko's lawyers, Subhas Anandan and Sunil Sudheesan, have said in a statement that the former NUS student will "tell her side of the story when the time comes" and that their client "strenuously denies any corrupt wrongdoing".

"Our
client's concern is assisting the Court to come to a truthful and just
conclusion of this matter. Our client fully believes that the truth will
prevail," they said, as quoted by Today.